Moses Njue: The ex-state pathologist whose truth cost him a job and helped win it back

On September 4, 2000, Kenyans woke up to the news that six inmates had made a daring prison break from King’ong’o during which they fell from a 24-foot wall.

Six men, police claimed, died in the botched escape.

This version was repeated from time to time by both the prison authorities and the police.

It later turned out to be a lie to cover up what had actually happened to the dead men, who they knew would tell no tales.

It took a pathologist, who resisted pressure to go with the police version, to bring to light the fact that the six had been brutally murdered by warders.

Dr Moses Njue, former Government Chief Pathologist and a man who had his share of controversy for going against officialdom, believes all truth lies with the dead.

HIGH PROFILE CASES

In his new book, Dare to be Different, Dr Njue chronicles some of the high-profile cases where the victims would have taken the truth to their graves were it not for intervention of a pathologist.

He narrates how he received death threats, how senior officers in the Ministry of Health often abetted cover-ups in controversial death cases, and how a hitman was once hired to finish him.

But he says he will forever stand for the truth.

Dr Njue narrates instances of cover-ups where the police and other security agencies were involved.

In one such case, he says, a senior pathologist, who was above him in rank, was hired to conduct a second autopsy and brand him as "a junior incompetent officer". 

The second report would later be admitted and presented to courts of law and to the public.

OUKO BLUNDER

The mention of the title government pathologist brings to many memories of one Dr Jason Kaviti.

Following the death of the then Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko, he came up with a theory that was to haunt him for the rest of his life.

He explained that Dr Ouko committed suicide — that he shot himself in the head, doused his body in petrol and then set himself alight.

The theory left many perplexed.

For many, it was a poorly scripted lie to calm the nerves of those who were calling for the nailing of the culprits believed to be well placed in the then Kanu government.

Dr Njue argues that he would rather resign than play to such theatrics. 

He says: “I do my work for justice and for science. If I choose to lie, it is my profession and integrity on the line”.

SOAKED IN BLOOD

He goes ahead to quote an anonymous author: “A corpse is a silent witness who doesn’t lie and, therefore, that who speak on behalf of the silent witnesses should not tell lies”.

During the King’ong’o killings, Dr Njue was serving as the Nyeri Provincial Consultant Pathologist.

When he arrived at the scene, he recounts, the bodies were marred and soaked in blood.

None of them had gunshot wounds.

He recalls: “I concluded that none of the injuries on any of the bodies of the deceased was in conformity with the fall from a height. Instead, all of them were in conformity with the hitting with sharp and blunt objects".

He continues: “The broken limbs were as a result of an attempt to wade off attack”.

COVER-UP GAME

After he wrote the report, he ordered all bodies X-rayed and refrigerated. 

But the cover-up game was not over.

On September 20, 2000, he says a senior medical officer travelled from Nairobi and conducted a second post-mortem without his knowledge and concluded that the version that the deceased had fallen from the wall was true.

The bodies were then buried in a mass grave at a local cemetery despite the fact that the relatives could identify them.

Dr Njue’s version had gained credence locally and internationally.

Despite pressure from his colleagues and well-placed people in the government hierarchy to propagate the police version, he stuck to his guns.

HUE AND CRY

He was vindicated after a hue and cry from rights activists and the media forced the government to order the exhumation of the six bodies and a third autopsy at the Lee Funeral Home in Nairobi.

At the end of the procedure, all the pathologists were in agreement that the deaths had nothing to do with falling from the wall.

Later, the prison wardens on duty that night were convicted of murdering the six inmates.

In another incident, Kamlesh Pattni’s driver Friedrich Kahlews had died in 1994 and was buried at the Lang’ata Cemetery.

Mr Pattni, the architect of the multibillion-shilling Goldenberg scandal, was later to be held as suspect in the murder.

The prosecution had maintained that the deceased had been strangled, but in Dr Njue's opinion, that was wrong.

PATTNI CASE

Despite conducting a second post-mortem, the government pathologist was surprised that Pattni was never dragged to court.

Instead, the trial judge dismissed both Dr Njue's and another pathologist's reports, saying they were “of little value to the prosecution case”.

Pattni was let off the hook.

But he says: “A post-mortem report is just but one of the requirements to nail a suspect. If the investigators and prosecutors do not do their job properly, then ours is one in vain”.

On May 2002, he narrates how his bosses in Nairobi hurriedly convened a pre-conference, where they called him and his colleague "liars" and threatened to deregister them from medical practice.

This was after Dr Njue conducted a post-mortem in Nyeri and concluded that an inmate identified only as Paul died from torture, not “inflammation of the brain" as had been peddled by his seniors.

MURDER PLOT

After that fallout, he says he was tipped off about a plot to eliminate him. A hitman had been hired.

He narrates: “A confidant gave me the identity of the hit man who was my acquaintance. I confronted him and told him, 'chief, I want to make your assignment easier. I will show you my house where you can always get me'. The man was shivering and tongue tied".

Two months after he conducted the post-mortem on Paul, he was summoned to the provincial headquarters in Nyeri for what he thought was a routine meeting.

To his shock, he was handed a letter that had been written seven days earlier requiring him to, within seven days, explain why severe disciplinary action should not be taken against him "for not reporting to work for seven days".

STATE ATTACKS

A driver had been assigned to take him to the Health ministry headquarters for a meeting with his bosses in Nairobi.

He was ordered to tear the post-mortem reports he had conducted on Paul, who died from police torture.

“Your post-mortem reports were incomplete and misleading. You embarrassed the government,” the bosses told him.

He was further accused of stealing stationery and supplies, receiving bribes for post-mortem and being “a pathological liar”.

He was ordered to desist from performing any further post-mortems and was immediately transferred to Nairobi.

On October 22, he tendered his resignation.

PATHOLOGIST FIRED

It was not accepted. Instead, in February of 2003, he was suspended then eventually sacked in May.

In August, he visited the Ministry of Health headquarters to see a friend.

He says he met the then Health Minister Charity Ngilu, who recognized him.

She took him to the Permanent Secretary’s office and ordered his reinstatement.

Eight years later, he quit to start a medical college in Nyeri.

He says although most pathologists give accurate observations, investigations of murder cases are usually bungled either in court or during police investigations.